reusing broken, old crayons

[beansricerevolt]

I was cleaning out the DC craft box and found a ton of old, broken crayons.
I'd hate to just pitch them.
What can I do with them? There has got to be something fun to make and do with melted down crayons.
If I made new crayons with them, wouldn't they all end up being brown when melted together? Im pretty sure I don't have enough stubs to color separate and make new of each color. Maybe I could just put the like colors together and make new?

ideas?

[Fyrestorm]

What about crayon muffins?

[merrijayne]

smaller amounts i have used ice cube trays in the hot sun. Or over a heater this time of year.

[flapjack]

Wax dyes for candle making. Or chop them up a bit smaller and drop them into a mould with a wick and pour some candle wax on top. Hit them with a hammer to turn them into little chips then get the iron out and turn them into butterfly pictures.

[LaughingHyena]

I tried melting some down to make new crayons a few weeks ago. I covered the bottons of some metal cookie cutters with foil as my molds. We just stuck int he broken bits anyhow, mixing up the colours.

If you watch them carefuly as they melt they you can pull them out when the colours still haven't mixed but there is enough melted stuff to hold them together. You get a crayon which changes colour as you use it, DD thinks this is great.

Some of ours do have bits where they don't draw as they were cheep crayons with lots of wax and not so much dye. Some didn't melt at all, I never though I could have a crayon in the oven for nearly an hour and not have it melt :

[rere]

These are fun.

[slsurface]

I second the crayon muffins...but I wanted to add that you don't have to make the muffins one color. It can be fun to mix all the colors together and get a crazy crayon that is different colors depending which angle you color with it.

Another idea is making simulated stained glass decorations. My mom always did these with us at Halloween and Christmas, but you could do any holiday or theme. First use a pencil sharpener to create crayon shavings. Then you melt the shavings between two pieces of wax paper with a hot iron (no steam). Be sure to put an old towel under and on top of the wax paper/crayon sandwich while your heating it. Once it cools you can cut up the wax paper into shapes and use as you wish. For example, we would cut out an outline of pumpkin with orange craft paper, then cut out a piece of "stain glass" to fit inside to make Halloween decorations. Use your imagination and have fun!

[beansricerevolt]

Thanks for all the ideas!

I Love the hearts! We are going to start working on those this weekend.

[MOM2ANSLEY]

dd made the "suncatcher" at school lastweek, guess I needa little motivation to rid us of that pile of crayons...love the hearts idea